The Hidden World
by ased-1616
Summary: this is a story about a girl who finds out that strange things are about to happen to her........


I hate this house, she thought grumpily. At least I have my own room, even though it's moldy, falling apart, gross and maroon!  
  
Her family had just bought a house. To them, it was new, but actually it was old, falling apart, and reputed to be haunted.  
  
Christie had seen no evidence of the place being haunted except for the brown cat that had appeared when they moved in. It could be a ghost, but, like she figured, ghosts were white, weren't they? She wasn't sure. Aunt Rose would know, she thought. Her aunt was in another part of the country, working in a bookstore, Chris's mom had told her.  
  
Anyway, back to her grumbling about her room. She completely hated everything about it. Even the fact that she had put up her favorite posters from their old house didn't make any difference. Since her new room had come completely furnished, she had been forced by her mother to give up the furniture that she had spent the last twelve years with. She had been angry about it, but her mother had been firm.  
  
"Since there are good things there, Chris," her mom had told her, "You will use them. Now I don't want to hear anymore arguing. Go to your room and stop complaining."  
  
So Chris had done just that. She had gone to her room and had not stopped complaining about the house and everything that wasn't theirs in it.  
  
In the middle of another grumble about how the door to the attic was in her room, Chris saw something that made her blood run cold.  
  
Her favorite poster, the one that she had made up to show what she thought the Garden of Eden looked like with the words at the bottom, were slowly somehow rearranging the letters to form a totally new saying. It was starting to say the Den of, the den of what? she thought hysterically, the letters at last forming the words 'The Den of Gared.'  
  
Chris was vaguely aware that the lights in her room were blinking on and off and that she was in danger of fainting, but all she could do was stare at the letters. She longed to scream, but when she opened her mouth, she found that all that came out was air. Forcing herself to turn away from the wall that she had been staring at for what seemed to be years, but was actually only a few minutes, she found that she could at last scream. Taking a deep breath, she began to scream at the top of her powerful lungs. She wasn't the best singer at her old school for nothing, after all.  
  
Hearing her scream, her mom ran into her room, her other children right behind her. By now, the lights had stopped blinking, but the words were still there, in their bright colors.  
  
Standing in the doorway, the rest of the family behind her, Chris's mom impatiently asked her, "Why were you screaming?"  
  
Chris pointed to the poster, and asked them, "Don't you see?"  
  
"See what?" asked her oldest sister, who by now had gotten into the room and was staring with blank puzzlement at the poster. She could see nothing but the words 'The Garden of Eden.'  
  
"The words on the poster changed. Can't you see it?" Chris tried to make them understand, but then her jaw dropped as she saw the letters return to their proper places, flashing for a second, then nothing was there except for 'The Garden of Eden.'  
  
"What are you talking about?" her mom demanded, "As if I didn't have better things to do with my time...."  
  
"Never mind, I....." Chris trailed off. She was beginning to wonder if she had seen the letters move or is she had just imagined it.  
  
"Whatever." her mom said, leaving the room, all but one of her children going with her.  
  
"What did you see, Chris? I know you had to have seen something." her sister Emily said.  
  
They were best friends and told each other everything, so Chris told her what she had seen. She trusted her.  
  
"I saw the letters on my poster move around to say something else. It said 'The Den of Gared', whatever that means." Chris shrugged, acting like it was nothing, now that it was over, although she was still pretty shaken up.  
  
"Are you sure, Chris? You've been under a lot of stress lately, you know..."  
  
"I didn't make it up. I know what I saw." Chris insisted, "I saw the letters moving."  
  
"Okay, I'm sorry." fourteen year old Emily apologized. She began whispering something that she had heard to Chris, the strands of her short brown hair mixing in with Chris's longer blonde ones.  
  
Meanwhile, in part of the Land Beneath the Earth, two voices were talking.  
  
"Hasssss sheeee seeeeeen the wordsssssss?" a raspy hissing voice asked.  
  
"Yes, mascher." a second voice said. He could not pronounce the letter T, so every T came out as a C or V.  
  
"Gooooood. Now we can help save our beloved wife." the first voice said, dropping the hiss and rasp and speaking normally. He always spoke in third person, referring to himself as we and our, never I or me. It was hard to understand at time, but for the most part, it worked rather well.  
  
"Now you must assume human form to help her. Gpstace!" the first voice thundered. A third voice joined the other two.  
  
"Yes, master?" asked Gpstace, speaking in a very proper British voice.  
  
The master spoke, his tone ringing with authority. "You will help Patbrace assume human form to help the girl save our wife! She has already seen the first messsssssageeeeeee." he added, the rasp and hiss once again in his voice.  
  
"Of course, master. I would do anything to help master save master's wife." Gpstace also had a curious way of speaking. He did not say the word you or yours. Instead, in this case it was master and master's.  
  
Gpstace and Patbrace left and in a short while returned. The master looked at Patbrace approvingly.  
  
"Goooood." he said, drawing out the word, "Now you go to the world and help the girl."  
  
They appeared in Chris's room. Chris could only see Patbrace, who was a human, but Gpstace was invisible being nothing but a voice.  
  
Emily, of course, could see nothing.  
  
"Who are you?" Chris asked Patbrace.  
  
"Who are you talking to, Chris?" Emily asked, worried about her best friend's sanity.  
  
"I am Pacbrace." he said, "Whav is your name?" he gave her a friendly smile. Except for his unfortunate lisp, he was quite normal, even friendly.  
  
"Chris." she replied.  
  
"And whav is her name?" he asked next.  
  
"Her name is Emily."  
  
Becoming very frightened, Emily tried to make Chris see reason.  
  
"Chris, Chris. How can you say 'her' when you know that I'm the only other person in the room? There's no one else here. Chris!"  
  
Through out all of this, Chris had been talking to the strange man in her room. When her mom had left, she had left the door open. The brown cat daintily walked in.  
  
When he saw the cat, Patbrace gave a gasp of happiness.  
  
"Mascher's wife! I have found you!" he said over and over, before picking up the cat.  
  
Emily heard nothing of this, but she did see the cat being picked up. She let out a scream of total fright before running out of the room in complete panic.  
  
"Can she see you?" Chris asked, confused by Emily's strange behavior.  
  
"No, no one buc you can see me. Vhav is vhe way vhings are done." he answered, suddenly sounding very odd.  
  
"Oh." she paused, "But why can't you let her see you? She's my best friend."  
  
Patbrace began muttering some extremely strange words. Although they were foreign to her, oddly enough she recognized them.  
  
Before she knew what was happening, she wasn't in her room. She was in a place she should have no clue about, but much to her surprise, she knew exactly where she was, like the memory of a long forgotten dream.  
  
A unfamiliar voice welcomed her. She could hear him, but she could see nothing. Everything was black. Black and musty.  
  
"Welcome,....." the master trailed off, silently inviting Chris to tell him her name.  
  
"Chris." she replied, "Who are you? Why am I here?"  
  
"Welcome, Chris. In answer to your questions, they call him master. You may do the same if you like. You are here for a very special task. You see, while she was walking in the Den of Gared-"  
  
"'The Den of Gared?'" Chris asked, surprised, "I saw those words on my favorite poster earlier."  
  
"Yes, we know. We arranged it. We do so hope that you were not frightened-" as she shook her head, he replied, "Good. As we were saying, in the Den of Gared, she was walking..."  
  
As he continued to talk, Chris carefully listened, but could not help staring at a wall. As he talked, Chris swore that she could see the things he was talking about taking place on the dark wall. She couldn't see any TV's, video cameras, or projectors, and she briefly wondered about it, until something the man, or whatever he was, said.  
  
"She was turned into a cat?" Chris repeated, not quite sure she had heard him correctly.  
  
"Yes, precisely. And it is our wish that you turn her back."  
  
"How can I?" she asked, intrigued.  
  
"We were just coming to that. What you have to do is go the Den of Gared and take a leaf from a certain plant. Now go!"  
  
"But how will I-"  
  
"You will know when you see it. Go!"  
  
"How do I-"  
  
"Gpstace and Patbrace will take you. Go!"  
  
They left, leaving behind the dark and musty room. Soon after, Chris found herself back in her room, with one minor change. The attic door was open and she could see ferns, plants and flowers trailing up the stairs. Patbrace was still holding the cat. With one gesture, Chris found herself following his unspoken order to go up the stairs, which, she found, had turned into stepping stones of a color she had never seen before in her life. As she walked, she could see a tiny stream running up the stairs. She paused, wondering about it, then she continued up the stones. Every stone seemed slightly smaller than the last, until they were no bigger than pebbles. She seemed to have been walking for a long time, but, when she looked down, she could see her room and Patbrace just as clearly as if she had just climbed a dozen steps, instead of the fifty she guessed at.  
  
Reaching the top, she looked around in complete astonishment. Never before had she seen such a place. It was like a rain forest, but not quite. Spotting a path nearby, she walked down it, wondering where it would lead her.  
  
She soon found out for she soon spotted a red plant surrounded by dozens of green ones. Something told her that this was the plant she was supposed to be looking for.  
  
She reached over to pick a single leaf then-  
  
"What do you think you are doing?" an imperious voice demanded.  
  
"Um......" Chris started to say nervously.  
  
"Well?"  
  
"I um was picking a um leaf for um a um cat." Chris stammered, feeling extremely foolish. To her surprise, the voice changed from imperious to happy surprise.  
  
"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? Here, take all you need."  
  
Out of the woods, another voice joined them. "Don't mind him," the voice, a female, said apologetically, "He's just worried about our master's wife. You were the pre chosen one to help her and anyone else who needs it. You are the only one who can handle the plant."  
  
Chris said her thanks as she took some of the plant. Turning back to go back to her room, she was faced by a fierce beast. She screamed as the creature opened its mouth.  
  
"Don't scream." a woman's voice said calmly, "I just have to ask you a favor."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Will you give me one of those leaves? I was turned into this creature and I want to be human again."  
  
"I don't know what to do." Chris said.  
  
"Just put the leaf on my tongue." as she saw Chris shiver visibly, "I won't bite."  
  
Chris was extremely scared, but, to make the woman happy, she carefully placed the leaf on her tongue then jerked her hand back.  
  
As she watched, the beast slowly turned back into a woman. A woman Chris knew well.  
  
Her voice no more than a whisper, still starting, Chris said, quite astonished, "Aunt Rose?!"  
  
"Yep." her aunt said cheerfully, "How have you been, Chris? What are you doing here anyway?"  
  
"We live here. Well, at least downstairs," Chris replied, gesturing towards the house beneath them, "We moved here after we were forced to leave grandma's house."  
  
"But why?"  
  
"Because of some legal thing. I don't exactly understand it."  
  
"Well, let's go back and get this whole thing straightened out."  
  
They walked down the path, it turning back into the attic as they went. When they got back to her room, they found that Chris had just enough of the plant left to turn the cat back into a person or whatever she was.  
  
After the plant had done its work, the lady that appeared thanked Chris over and over and then offered her a reward.  
  
Her aunt spoke for her. "I think that what Chris wants most in the world is to go back to her home. Right, Chris?"  
  
"Right."  
  
The lady blew a kiss at the door as she and Patbrace disappeared, never to be seen again.  
  
Chris's mom came rushing into the room, a letter clutched in one hand.  
  
"Wonderful news!" she cried happily, "We can move back into our- Rose?!" she exclaimed, seeing her long lost sister for the first time in months, "How did you get here?"  
  
"It's a long story, Lydia. I'll tell you later. What was your news?"  
  
"I got a letter from our lawyer. We can move back home! You'll go with us, won't you, Rose?"  
  
"Wild horses couldn't stop me." Rose said, grinning.  
  
In less than a week, they were back home. Chris got all new furniture, as her old things had been thrown out.  
  
A few days after they moved back, she hung her Garden of Eden poster in the place of honor, smiling, remembering the adventures she had had. As she gazed at the poster, she was given another surprise. She had chosen her characters carefully when she had first made the poster and now, she could swear that the lady chosen to be Eve looked suspiciously like the lady she had saved. She looked closer when, in the corner of her eye, she spotted another thing. The lady on the poster was winking at her. 


End file.
